Let's Row Together

Saying THANK YOU to all who've gotten me ready for my book tour. Starts next week.

If you see me wearing the outfit dangling on my back porch, then you’ll know my book tour has begun.

I bought the dress and jacket in June at a small boutique on Main Street in Orleans. I don’t buy new outfits often since my old ones work for my few dress-up occasions. But that day I was with college friends who saw me admiring the dress. One of them all but dragged me in the dressing room to try it on, while another carried the white jacket to me.

I emerged wearing the outfit and my friends’ eyes lit up. They know I’m thrifty and sensible, but they said the words “book tour, and the deal was sealed.

I splurged!

Back home, I hung the outfit in my closet. Its tags are still on it today.

Next Thursday my nationwide travels, aka book tour, begins. On Friday, I will wear this outfit when I address the Women in Baseball Research Chapter at the Society of American Baseball Research’s conference in Minneapolis.

Later that day, a bunch of baseball-crazed women, like me, will head to A Bar of Their Own, that city’s women's sports bar, the second in the nation.

All of this happens a week before Locker Room Talk is published on August 16th. So, I preordered books to be sent to the hotel. I’ll be signing after my talk – and later that afternoon at A Bar of Their Own! In Portland, Oregon, I’m following this same script: Speaking at Powell’s Books at 3:00 October 27th, then hosting my after-party at The Sports Bra, the first-in-the-nation women’s sports bar!

Check out my book tour schedule. If I’m coming to your city/town, show up, let me know you’re a Substack subscriber, and share news of my book talk with friends.

And if you want to purchase Locker Room Talk with a 30% discount + free shipping, click here and apply the code RUSA30.

If writing Locker Room Talk was the hardest work I’ve ever done — and it was, well, organizing a national book tour when my publisher has lost its only publicist three months before my book tour begins is a close second.

I cannot imagine what it’s like for an author who is not a journalist. My career leaves me with a vague idea of how a press release should read – I received many – and I know how to pester people (a trait of journalists) – now it’s event folks at bookstores. I’m also trying to get the attention of editors/writers at new outlets about giving my book press coverage when I come to the town/city to talk about Locker Room Talk.

What I’m learning: the more communication tools we have, the less we communicate.

In other words, emails go unanswered and my frustrations abound.

I am doing everything that an author - who is not a celebrity – needs to do to share the story I spent so many years writing. I know now why so many authors end up paying big bucks to hire their own publicist to this.

This just in — as I was writing this Substack, Jenni Carlson, sports columnist at The Oklahoman since 1999, released the talk we did for The Jenni Carlson show. I urge you to subscribe to her Substack.

Thank you, Jenni Carlson, for your finding me, asking good questions, and sharing my book with your many subscribers.

In one word, my book journey is about FRIENDS!

Add a second, it would be GRATITUDE. Mine!

To friends, old ones and new ones I’ve met along the way – to all who said yes when I asked for help – it’s time for me to publicly THANK YOU! With your helping hands, you have given me faith that this crazy adventure might work out after all. Even if it doesn’t, knowing YOU are with me is reward enough.

Let’s start with the many who have bought my Locker Room Talk - and encouraged friends to do so. Such as fellow rower Sheila May, who preordered it, buying enough for her and the fellow moms who rowed an 8 with her. When she sent me this picture, I told her I’d be happy to talk with her crew anytime. I’ll even bring food.

For those of you with book clubs, if you want to read my book, let me know and I’ll Zoom in, or stop by, if you are nearby.

After last night’s crew races, I was walking among the 44 rowers and saw that many of them had my book in their hands. Turns out my friend Risa Greendlinger, who I’ve known nearly 40 years, was handing out Locker Room Talk to rowers who’s told her they wanted to read it.

She’d ordered 25 copies!!!

When the rowers asked where they could hear me speak, I could tell them since I’d heard the day before about my boathouse gig - moderated by fellow rower Lisa Laskin – at Community Rowing, Inc. ( 5:00 on Sept 7) Open to all, even if you don’t YET row.

Thank you, Tommy John - who in 1977 was the LA Dodgers pitcher/player rep – for agreeing to be with me at Bookstore1 in Sarasota, Florida (Nov. 14) to relive your central role in my court case. Thank you, my Wellesley classmates Kathy Sorin Walker and Meg Hausberg for your scouting reports on venues and arranging a Wellesley Alumnae Club gathering.

Thank you, Leslie Heaphy, chair of SABR’s Women in Baseball chapter, for inviting me to keynote last year’s Women in Baseball conference, for inviting me to speak at the upcoming 2024 SABR conference, for setting up a table so I can sign books, and for your sturdy support of me and my book.

Thank you, Iliana Limón Romero, LA Times assistant managing editor for sports, for wanting to excerpt Locker Room Talk in the Times, in print and online, and hosting a book talk in Los Angeles (Oct. 22). Thanks, too, to my college classmate Karen Grisby Bates for hosting me at LA’s bookstore, Village Well. (Oct. 21)

Thank you, Claire Smith, baseball writer extraordinaire and director of Temple’s Claire Smith Center for Sports Media for inviting me to your Women in Sports Media Symposium (Oct. 19) that you are hosting. The night before, Claire and I talk baseball, locker rooms, and women in sports media at Philadelphia’s Free Library, (Oct 18).

Thank you, Rosanna Hertz and Bethany Ellis, at my alma mater, Wellesley College, for pairing me with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Geneva Overholser to engage with students about our ongoing quest for equality. Rosanna, a professor in Women’s and Gender Studies, and Bethany, director of Athletics, came together to co-sponsor this event, and that’s a FIRST for these two departments at Wellesley!

Thank you, Soheil Fathi and Sarah Moridpour, owners of La Saison Bakery, my go-to café in Cambridge, for hosting a sure to be fun-filled, celebratory event for Locker Room Talk with music and delicious treats. (Sept. 7)

Thank you, Lynn Povich, author of The Good Girls Revolt, for partnering with me to convince events folks at New York Historical Society (Oct. 15) to invite us to talk about our legal fights and those that other women journalists waged against gender discrimination.

Thank you, Dale Russakoff for asking, “Hey, why don’t I do a book event for you in the library at Montclair, NJ?, then presto, it’s being co-sponsored (Oct. 16) by the Yogi Berra Museum and moderated by Kelly Whiteside who, like me, wrote at Sports Illustrated and teaches sports journalism at Montclair State.

Thank you, Elizabeth Mehren, fellow author and journalist, for sharing terrific hints from your own book tour for I Lived to Tell the World a few months before mine. I am following your book tour’s breadcrumbs, my friend.

Thank you, Tommy Tomlinson, author of Dogland, and Mary C. Curtis, for putting in a good word about me and my book with WFAE: Charlotte Talks. This is the show to be on when doing a book talk at Charlotte’s Park Road Books (Oct. 2).

Thank you, Seth Effron, Nieman classmate and friend, who volunteered to drive me around North Carolina on my 4-city book tour - Asheville (Sept. 30, Elizabeth Leland moderating), Charlotte (Oct. 2, Mary C. Curtis), Greensboro (Oct. 3, Lindsay Gibbs), and Raleigh (Oct. 4, William (Sandy) Darity, who I have not seen since Amherst High School days.

Thank you, Howard Berkes for reading my Facebook posts and emailing me with good guidance and contact info for local NRP folks in places I’m going.

Thank you, Tyler Bridges, author of “Five Laterals and a Trombone,” for emailing the owner of New Orleans’ Octavia Books on my behalf. Once I had a book talk (Sept. 16)— moderated by Gwen Thompkins – thanks for connecting me with Bobby Hebert, legendary Saints’ quarterback, who is interviewing me for his sports radio show.

Thank you, Emily Mezzetti, for making the Captain’s Table, a magnificent restaurant overlooking Hyannis Harbor, available for my Cape Cod hometown book launch (August 22), and for moderating the book talk.

Thank you, Jim Kaplan, my fellow baseball reporter at Sports Illustrated, author of many baseball books, and Martha’s Vineyard summer resident, for reaching out to the West Tisbury Library. Now, we get to share long ago stories there on August 21.

Thank you, Leslie Sandberg, for introducing me to East End Books in Provincetown, for moderating my book talk at the P-town library (August 28), and for your invaluable assistance in connecting me with media folks on Cape Cod.

Thank you, Jan Ellen Spiegel, a fellow journalist, for making a trip to your hometown bookstore to ask them to read the email I sent. I still have not received a reply, but to know you tried warms my heart.

Thank you, Jo Lannin, author of “Who Let Them In?” for moderating my first book talk in at Novel in Portland, ME (Aug. 16); thank you, Terry Muilenburg (after-book-talk host) and moderator Kathy Bonk for bringing me to the Brooklin, ME (Aug. 17); thank you, SABR leaders for inviting me to speak with your members – Marlene Vogelsang (Lefty O’Doul/Dusty Baker chapters, Aug. 15) David Laurila (SABR Boston chapter, Sept. 3), a talk moderated by Jen McCaffrey, The Athletic writer covering the Boston Red Sox, and Bruce McClure (Clyde Sukeforth Chapter, Sept. 28); thank you, Jeffrey Gerson, in whose UMass Lowell sports journalism class I’ve taught, for asking me to talk with Boston-area journalism students in Fenway Park press room (Sept. 20).

Thank you, Bruce Markusen, for hosting my book at the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Boston Globe sports columnist Dan Shaughnessy joins me for a nationwide talk (Sept 18).

Thank you, Emerson College journalism professors, Laurie Anderson and Diane Mermigas, whose classes I’ve taught, for convincing your dean to do a larger book event in Boston (Sept. 25); thank you Journalism & Women’s Symposium (JAWS) for including me on your panel of authors (Sept. 14) at our annual “camp” in New Orleans, where I will sell and sign Locker Room Talk; thank you, Sreenath "Sree" Sreenivasan and Neil Parekh for hosting me on your must-listen Sunday morning #NYTReadalong (Sept. 22); thank you, Steve Fox, sports journalism professor at UMass Amherst for bringing me home to Amherst for our book talk with UMass journalism students (Sept. 26); thank you, Maddy Blais, author of the national bestselling book In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle, about the Amherst high school basketball team’s state championship season - long after I played on that team. We’ll be in South Hadley’s Odyssey Books (Oct. 10).

Thank you, Connie Hale and Blake Hallanan and Heather McLeod, Bay Area friends, for looking for and finding venues for three books talks: Mechanics Hall with Chronicle sports columnist Ann Killion (Oct. 24), Books Inc, Berkeley (Oct. 25 with Connie), Book Passage in Corte Madera (Oct. 25, with Melissa Jacobs); thank you, Linda Kramer Jennings, fellow JAWS member, for making book talks on Bainbridge Island (Oct. 30) with author Maggie Mertens, and in Seattle (Oct. 29) happen. Thank you, Susanna Ray, Seattle JAWS president, for introducing me to Stefanie Loh, fellow rower and features editor at the Seattle Times, who will moderate my Seattle book talk at The Forum.

I’ll catch up on my November book talks closer to home in a future Substack, as well as events that I’ll be planning for early 2025. These include a book talk with Hillary Rodham Clinton in New York City and one with Doris Kearns Goodwin in Boston.

Thank you Stan Grossfeld for photographing me at Fenway Park, photo below. One of your photos is on my book jacket, and they are all over book talk visuals. No one ever captured the essence of my love for baseball better than you. No one is as generous as you are in letting me use your photos on my website and for my book tour, as I did for my SABR NH visit, above.

Thank you, Tara Sullivan, Boston Globe sports columnist. When you said YES to launching Locker Room Talk in my home city Porter Square Books, I sensed I’d be okay.